Krydel4

The point of the thread was to start a discussion to my question heading. I'm not sure how asking if there was wiggle room in the price based upon the knowledge that I had for what the book was selling for is out of line and annoying? That's how cons used to work, I guess it's changed. Which was what my question was asking.

The economics of a primary market like the food and beverage industry and secondary market like comic book back issues is not an apples to apples comparison. No one comes into your establishment and asks for a 30% discount on the half drunk Martini missing a quarter of an olive. It comes down to customer service and part of that is knowing who you're selling too and what you are selling. It was neither in this case.

He doesn't. But he didn't have knowledge of his product or simply chose to ignore the 3 other recent GPA sales that were for significantly less than what he was asking. If he had that knowledge perhaps he would have relalized my offer was a good one as it was higher than those other 3 but not quite his outlier number. The money in my pocket went to the other dealer. And his book was still there at the end of the show. I didn't lose out on anything as I got 3 great books at a price point the dealer and I were happy with and he got nothing. No skin off my nose.

Also the 9.6 GPA price he had the book at was an outlier price as there were 3 other 9.6 sales within 30 days that were significantly less. My offer was between the average of the other 3 and his price. So if you have gone to the trouble of having GPA you'll know what the other prices are and you should be flexible accordingly. That's what happened with the other dealer I bought a slab from. It was a modern book as well so it's not like it was a GA, SA, or BA 9.6 book that grading can be a little soft on. 🤷‍♂️

Totally Agree. I have my go to dealers based upon positive past experiences. I had not seen this guy before but I'm always willing to give someone a chance. But the last couple of cons I've been to more guys like him seem to be showing up.

Part of expertise is having knowledge of your product and your customers. In this case there was neither. No knowledge of how to grade and be honest about your product (and that there may be a need to budge on it) and no knowledge that every customer is different and needs to be approached accordingly. I know I got a deal on the books I purchased from the other dealer as I did my due diligence by researching those books and knowing what they were going for in the grades I was looking for. Dealers are at Cons to make sales, if that has changed I missed the memo. Everyone has a backend and needs to make money. If the future of the hobby is the former dealer instead of the latter, well then may be time to step away.

The slab didn't matter to me as I crack, read and Mylar all my slabbed purchases (that go directly into the Black Hole that is my collection). He was trying to sell the "9.6 Slab" and not the book inside. I think that's where my problem is with it. Like I said the experience was like purchasing a stock and not a collectible that's supposed to bring joy.

Having been buying from shows since the 80s there has has been a definite shift in the last couple of years to this type of attitude and set up at cons. The barter has always been part of a show ecosystem. Next door to him was a long time dealer who had the traditional set up of long boxes (open to go thru) dollar box, wall books, chatting with other customers. I bought a few books from him that we negotiated prices on (one of them was slabbed but graded accurately in his and my opinion) I ended up paying about 90% of his marked price on the books. It was a good transaction and it made me feel like I was interacting in a human setting. The other was like I was buying insurance but even then the broker tries to get you a better rate.

At a show I went to recently, there was a Vendor who had a table, 3 full Slab Short boxes, a printout of the Slabs in the boxes with their grade and GPA prices and a Square payment terminal. I perused the print out taped to the table. Asked to see the book as he had the lids on the boxes. He got it out (putting the lid back on), I looked at it, the grade given on the slab was pretty soft as it was given a 9.6 and their were visible spine ticks, blunted corner and a crease on the back ( I had to ask him to take it out of the slab bag it was in). I made an offer that was within 15% of the GPA price he had listed as I thought the book was at best a 9.0-9.2 given the visible defects I could see. He smirked and said the price is as listed. I pointed out the defects. He said the slab says 9.6, the price is what the GPA for a 9.6 is. No Counter offer. I handed it back and walked away. The dispassionate way he went about this really rubbed me wrong. It just makes me feel that now the hobby has given power away to a third party its irrevocably become less human. It felt like I was making a stock trade. Anyone ever encounter something like this? Should we just have automated bot dealers?

My bad. I always forget it has the Kent's and Krypton. If it had the first appearance of Lex Luthor in it then it would definitely be top 3.

Bats 1 has the greatest comic book villain of all time in the Jokers first appearance, the Origin of Batman, and Catwomans first appearance. Those 3 factors put it ahead of Cap 1 (and Superman 1, in my opinion, as it's just reprinted material.)

Love me some purple too.

It's this 100%. I think that it easy to forget especially in this forum that the majority here are the Elite collector. They are dealers or collectors who purchased their books that were relatively cheap many years ago that are now going for upwards of 6 figures. To be the top 1% in the 🇺🇸 means you make about 600k a year before tax. So after tax income say in Florida after Fed, FICA, state, local and 401k is about 320k. You allocate 10% of that to buying a big book as you have all that other sucky adult life stuff to pay for. You have $32000 to spend. All you can afford is 3/4 of a page of Batman 1. Or you allocate 90% of your income to buying big books and you live in a shack in the swamp held together by CGC Slabs.

Flash 110. First Wally West. Hollywood hates redheads almost as much as Cartman does. So I wouldn't expect to see the OG Wally anytime soon.

Jim Starlin had to buy his own ticket to Avengers. The creators from pre-2010 usually get 0 in royalties from any character used in a medium or merchandise other than a comic book. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/09/marvel-and-dc-face-backlash-over-pay-they-sent-a-thank-you-note-and-5000-the-movie-made-1bn

It's Hot Wheels version/take on the Batmobile. It's not based off of any movie, TV show or Comic. https://play.hotwheels.com/en-us/collection/batman

🤔 I have an idea.

New Planet. Companions well with my 57.

I would like to think I'm about a 3.0 on the narcissist scale of my comic collection. But with a little less humility and a bit more ego, I could probably top out at a 4.0 or 4.5. 😛

Probably is. Bottom 2 are my books. The 105 I just pulled from the net. I have yet to scan the 105. EDIT: Got out the scanner and scanned mine.